Undergraduate - UnitATS2840 - Philosophy of mind

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Philosophy
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Off-campus) Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day) Clayton Second semester 2015 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Jennifer Windt (Day); Dr Sam Butchart (Off-campus)

Notes

The unit is offered as part of the Philosophy Flexible Learning program - see the Philosophy Flexible LearningPhilosophy Flexible Learning (http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/philosophy/philosophy-flexible-learning/) page for further information.

Synopsis

This unit is concerned with some philosophical questions about the nature of consciousness, in particular with the question whether consciousness is irreducibly non-physical. We shall look at all of the major theories of the mind/body relationship, and we shall also examine the prospects for the creation of artificial intelligence and conscious computers.

Outcomes

Upon successfully completing this unit, students will have a good understanding of the main competing solutions to the mind/body problem, i.e. to the problem of determining exactly how mind and body are related. Students will also have a good understanding of the ways in which solutions to the mind/body problem relate to other disputed questions in philosophy of mind, e.g. whether animals have thoughts, whether machines are capable of thought, whether the world can be exhaustively described in the language of physics, and so forth.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 70%
Exam: 30%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.